


Seventy Times Seven

by arcadian_dream



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:11:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadian_dream/pseuds/arcadian_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat, Ginny discovers that there are some wounds that take longer to heal than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seventy Times Seven

'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?'

`I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.'

 

\- Matthew, 18.21-22

 

 

For the first time in a long time, a hush had fallen over The Burrow.

 

In the days preceding the holidays it bustled, throbbing with life and laughter; love and warmth. But now, as most of the family lay in bed, drifting off to sleep, Ginny could discern only the presence of a cool, sparse quiet as she sat in the lounge room, her fingertips pressed lightly to her skin as she traced over the line of the scar that marred her face.

 

"Ginny?" a soft voice inquired, piercing the almost-anticipatory silence, "Ginny?"

 

"I told you already, Gabrielle. I have nothing to say to you," Ginny answered.

 

"Ginny please," Gabrielle implored as she sat beside her sister-in-law, "Just listen to me; I need you to listen to me."

 

Ginny shot Gabrielle a glare and, with a dismissive wave of her hand rose from her seat before bounding up the staircase to her bedroom.

 

Gabrielle followed.

 

"Ginny,_ please_" she sobbed, "You 'ave to forgive me, Ginny."

 

 Pleading, Gabrielle fell to her knees, her body crumpling before Ginny who stood at the door to her bedroom, her mouth set and her eyes wide.

 

"_Please_," Gabrielle choked once more as tears rolled down her cheeks; soft and flushed and still full of the dusky bloom of youth; of quiet hope.

 

Above her, Ginny breathed deeply. The air felt coarse, jagged, as it passed over her lips and tongue: its cold, foreign fingers curling inside her.

 

*

 

_"Weasley," Bellatrix muttered under hear breath as she paced back and forth, "Weasley, Weasley, Weasley. Born into a family of rank blood traitors – what a complete and utter disgrace to the noble traditions of magic you all are."_

_Bellatrix passed her wand from hand-to-hand while she spoke, tossing it between her grip as though it were little more than a child's plaything. Ginny, bound and gagged and slumped in the corner could only watch and wish that the cold stone wall against which she leaned would open up and swallow her whole. _

_"What a pathetic excuse for a witch," Bellatrix continued to murmur: She approached Ginny and, grabbing a fistful of cherry-red hair, pulled her head back, hard, so that Ginny could no longer escape her gaze: "Whatever shall we do with you?"_

 

*

 

Ginny stared at Gabrielle: she watched as she cried, and as she clung to Ginny's forearm; sharp fingernails digging into freckled skin with a burning desperation Ginny knew all too well.

 

Grasping Gabrielle's hand firmly in her own, Ginny loosened the girl's grip and, with a heave, shoved her back onto the landing.

 

*

 

_"I believe you used to be rather fond of the Dark Lord, Weasley," Bellatrix continued to muse, to herself more than Ginny: to Ginny, the words were just that – only that – words, clicking tongues and hollow sounds; mere vibrations whirring in the air. _

_Empty. _

_"In fact," Bellatrix continued and, with a muttered incantation and a flick of her wand, dragged Ginny to her feet, "I believe he almost destroyed you." _

_Bellatrix advanced suddenly on Ginny and, closing the distance between them, she pressed her lips to Ginny's cheek, grimy and tear-streaked, before she spoke again: "Perhaps, Weasley, we finish the Dark Lord's good work."_

_Ginny shrank back from Bellatrix's touch, from her warm breath and cracked lips and words that tumbled into the air with an ominous foreboding._

_"I will however, need an extra pair of hands," Bellatrix finished and, with a wave of her hand, signalled to the Death Eater standing guard at the door._

 

 

*

 

Ginny turned her back on Gabrielle as she pushed her; she paused in the doorway, the dim amber light of the bedroom casting shadows across the cluttered floor. With one hand pressed against the doorframe, she listened to the thud as Gabrielle crashed against the railing.

 

She listened to the sporadic sobs, and the intermittent intake of breath.

 

_Forgive._

 

Ginny mouthed the word, wrapping her lips around the syllable, holding it on her tongue. It was vast lightness and weight all at once, and she thought her knees might buckle beneath the burden.

 

With a deep sigh, Ginny pivoted slowly. She was facing Gabrielle once more who stood, doubled-over, the palms of her hands clinging to the wall as she steadied her footing.

 

"Please, Ginny; _sister_" she repeated, her voice a hushed whisper, "I need you to forgive me."

 

"Sister," Ginny said; the word a mere shell; shards of it cracking and splintering on her tongue, icy and searing against the gentle warmth of her mouth: "Sister, you betrayed me."

 

*

 

_A small figure was thrust out of the shadows and into the light; wan ribbons of the moon's ethereal glow illuminating the girl's face; the girl's familiar face. _

_Gabrielle._

_Ginny gasped – or, rather, she attempted to and, as she did, inhaled little more than the salt, sweat and blood that stained the filthy rag stuffed into her mouth. _

_"I'm so sorry, Ginny, I-I –" _

_"Quiet," Bellatrix ordered, striking Gabrielle across the face. As the echo of the smack reverberated off of the walls, Bellatrix seized Gabrielle by the arm and dragged her toward Ginny._

_"Oh, that's right," she said, feigning ignorance, "You two know each other, do you not? You two are now – sisters, is it?"_

_Bellatrix snickered contemptuously as she uttered the words._

_"Well, Weasley, perhaps you would like to know what your dear sister-in-law has been up to since the Dark Lord ascended to power." Bellatrix, her hand gripping Gabrielle's forearm so tightly that her knuckles seemed to glow white under her skin, relinquished her hold, shoving her to the wall. _

_Gabrielle clung to the bricks; her mouth was contorted in anguish, her cheeks marked with the tracks of a perpetual stream of tears, her nose dripped as a salty sheen dried on her upper lip. _

_"You see, Weasley, this, this - girl," Bellatrix spat viciously as though the word itself were poison on her tongue, " – this foolish girl is the reason you're in here. And, unless you talk, she will be the reason you die here."_

 

*

 

Ginny swallowed and stepped tentatively into her room; leaving the door ajar she seated herself on the edge of her bed. The covers rustled beneath her shifting weight and from the landing she could hear Gabrielle return to her feet.

 

Ginny watched as she shuffled to the bed; as she sat beside her.

 

"I know," Gabrielle said weakly; her voice was forlorn and sounded as though the words she spoke might tear before they were released from her mouth: "I know. And I'm sorry. But Ginny ... I need you to forgive me. I need to forgive myself."

 

With a sigh, Ginny inclined her head towards Gabrielle; towards her pleas and her tears and her desperate aching need, and she took Gabrielle's trembling fingers in her own.

 

*

 

_Gabrielle shook her head vigourously._

_"No, I won't!" she cried as Bellatrix forced a wand into her hand: "I won't do it!"_

_"Yes, you will." Bellatrix's voice sliced through the air; through Gabrielle's cries and Ginny's increasingly hurried breaths: "Or you will join her."_

_Gabrielle wailed as Bellatrix ushered her to where Ginny was huddled._

_She struggled against her bindings and screamed into her gag, her eyes prickling, as she watched Bellatrix raise her wand and incant:_

_"Imperio!"_

_Ginny could do nothing as Gabrielle raised her arm and flicked the wand that had been forced upon her._

_Ginny could do nothing as she felt the searing pain of her cheek being torn open at Bellatrix's command; and at Gabrielle's hand._

_And she could do nothing as the blood streamed from her face, over her chin and neck; pooling in droplets on the floor; swallowed by the dank stone and cold night and Bellatrix's lascivious laughter._

 

*

 

Gabrielle sat, her mouth agape, as Ginny guided her fingers to the silver-white scar that marked her face; the sharp line of shirred skin that streaked across her freckled cheeks.

 

In silence, Ginny traced the scar tissue with Gabrielle's fingertips; allowing them to linger and, finally, to fall to her slightly parted lips, which she pursed together in a tender kiss.

 

Now, she could do something.

 

She could forgive.

 

Ginny clasped Gabrielle's hands and, with a deep sob that seemed to course through her entire body, she nodded; through trembling lips she forgave Gabrielle: as the day forgives the night with each new dawn; as the present forgives the past.

 

Outside, The Burrow began to stir once more.


End file.
